During a Carnival ball, masked Marie Antoinette slaps an aggressive suitor, leading to her arrest. Upon leraning her identity, the young officer in command frees her and gives her a letter in which he declares his love, which she destroys. Years later in 1793, while imprisoned and awaiting execution, she receives a rescue note. Marie Antoinette recognizes the same officer in her saviour after he fails to rescue her and is strangled before her eyes. She is then led to the scaffold.